resource.’
“You can imagine, Watson, with what eagerness I listened to this
extraordinary sequence of events, and endeavoured to piece them together, and
to devise some common thread upon which they might all hang. The butler was
gone. The maid was gone. The maid had loved the butler, but had afterwards had
cause to hate him. She was of Welsh blood, fiery and passionate. She had been
terribly excited immediately after his disappearance. She had flung into the lake
a bag containing some curious contents. These were all factors which had to be
taken into consideration, and yet none of them got quite to the heart of the
matter. What was the starting-point of this chain of events? There lay the end of
this tangled line.
“‘I must see that paper, Musgrave,’ said I, ‘which this butler of yours thought
it worth his while to consult, even at the risk of the loss of his place.’
“‘It is rather an absurd business, this ritual of ours,’ he answered. ‘But it has at
least the saving grace of antiquity to excuse it. I have a copy of the questions and
answers here if you care to run your eye over them.’
“He handed me the very paper which I have here, Watson, and this is the
strange catechism to which each Musgrave had to submit when he came to
man’s estate. I will read you the questions and answers as they stand.
“‘Whose was it?’
“‘His who is gone.’
“‘Who shall have it?’
“‘He who will come.’
“‘Where was the sun?’
“‘Over the oak.’
“‘Where was the shadow?’
“‘Under the elm.’
“How was it stepped?’
“‘North by ten and by ten, east by five and by five, south by two and by two,
west by one and by one, and so under.’
“‘What shall we give for it?’
“‘All that is ours.’
“‘Why should we give it?’
“‘For the sake of the trust.’
“‘The original has no date, but is in the spelling of the middle of the